21.4240, Diss: Applied Ling/Psycholing: Poschen: 'Plural Processing in ...'

[linguist at LINGUISTLIST.ORG]

LINGUIST List: Vol-21-4240. Mon Oct 25 2010. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 21.4240, Diss: Applied Ling/Psycholing: Poschen: 'Plural Processing in ...'

Moderators: Anthony Aristar, Eastern Michigan U <aristar at linguistlist.org>
            Helen Aristar-Dry, Eastern Michigan U <hdry at linguistlist.org>
 
Reviews: Monica Macaulay, U of Wisconsin-Madison  
Eric Raimy, U of Wisconsin-Madison  
Joseph Salmons, U of Wisconsin-Madison  
Anja Wanner, U of Wisconsin-Madison  
       <reviews at linguistlist.org> 

Homepage: http://linguistlist.org/

The LINGUIST List is funded by Eastern Michigan University, 
and donations from subscribers and publishers.

Editor for this issue: Mfon Udoinyang <mfon at linguistlist.org>
================================================================  

To post to LINGUIST, use our convenient web form at
http://linguistlist.org/LL/posttolinguist.cfm.

===========================Directory==============================  

1)
Date: 24-Oct-2010
From: Marie-Louise Poschen [ml.poschen at gmail.com]
Subject: Plural Processing in Native Speakers and Learners of English: Challenging the notion of strictly grammatical plural processing
 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2010 11:08:29
From: Marie-Louise Poschen [ml.poschen at gmail.com]
Subject: Plural Processing in Native Speakers and Learners of English: Challenging the notion of strictly grammatical plural processing

E-mail this message to a friend:
http://linguistlist.org/issues/emailmessage/verification.cfm?iss=21-4240.html&submissionid=3476934&topicid=14&msgnumber=1
  

Institution: Universität Paderborn 
Program: English Language and Linguistics 
Dissertation Status: Completed 
Degree Date: 2009 

Author: Marie-Louise Poschen

Dissertation Title: Plural Processing in Native Speakers and Learners of
English: Challenging the notion of strictly grammatical
plural processing 

Dissertation URL:  http://ubdok.uni-paderborn.de/servlets/DocumentServlet?id=12410

Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics
                     Psycholinguistics

Subject Language(s): English (eng)


Dissertation Director(s):
Manfred Pienemann
Gisela Hakansson

Dissertation Abstract:

The primary aim of this study is to explore whether the nature of processing
English plural inflections is lexical or grammatical. Secondly, I want to
ascertain whether second language learners change their processing paths in the
course of language acquisition. I hypothesize that plural processing is not a
strictly grammatical processing event and that there are various factors
influencing the processing. 

In order to test my assumption I developed two reaction time experiments to test
the underlying factors that I believe influence plural processing. In the first
experiment, a lexical decision task, native speakers and learners of English
decide whether 400 test items are real or nonsense words. All real words
relevant to the study are matched for frequency and singular or plural
dominance. Reaction times for the decision process are recorded. In the second
experiment, a grammatical judgment task, the subjects decide whether a given
noun phrase is grammatically correct. The real purpose of the experiment is to
see how long it takes the subjects to match a dual concept with either a plural
determiner or a dual determiner. 

My experiments show that plural processing is not strictly grammatical. Instead,
a number of factors such as frequency, plural dominance, and conceptual
association play a role in plural processing, rendering it either more lexical
or more grammatical. My findings also show that there is no strict division
between language learners and native speakers in terms of plural processing.
Instead, the two native-speaker groups differ substantially in their processing
behavior. In addition, the learner groups do not show any gradual progression
towards native speaker processing during their schooling.





-----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-21-4240